LUPICA: Americans keep shooting kids at school while our President gripes about border walls

There was another shooting at another American high school on Wednesday afternoon, this one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and when the shooting stopped there were more kids standing outside another American high school talking to reporters about how you never think it's going to happen to your school, not until you hear the first shots. But the reality, of course, in a country where a school gets shot up every few weeks, is that they should start teaching a new, required course at American high schools:

Active Shooter.

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Once, back in the 1960s, there were air raid drills in American schools, back when we thought Russia was going to drop the big one on us, a bomb that never came. But drills aren't enough now when the threat is this constant, and present, and real. In this America, the shooters just keep coming through the door, as if active shooters are as much a pageant in American high schools as the homecoming dance.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. is the site of the latest school shooting. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

When shooting finally stopped at the latest high school, 17 were dead when it was Parkland, Fla. this time after it was a high school in Kentucky at the end of January, here was the tweet from the President of the United States:

"My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school."

President Trump acts as if securing the southern border of the U.S. will be enough to protect Americans. (JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS)

Guess what? They're not safe, not after 18 school shootings in this country in the first 45 days of a new year? President Donald J. Trump spends so many of his waking hours worrying about border walls and immigrants and chain migration, and acting as if all we have to do is secure the southern border of this country to be the safest country on earth. Only our high school students are not safe from guns, were not safe on Wednesday when a "Level 3 Mass Casualty" shooting came to south Florida.

And you know what is done about guns in the America where school shootings sometimes seem as common as the common cold?

Nikolas Cruz, 19, has been identified as the shooter who killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Nothing is ever done. So a new set of high school kids talked outside their high school on this day about hearing the "pop pop pop" of the first gunfire. We heard about kids in lockdown inside the school and saw another parade of kids walking away from a day of school with their hands up, at a time of day when they should have been doing is heading for buses.

Three weeks ago — three exactly — it was Marshall County High School in Benton, Ky. The two dead that day in Kentucky were two 15-year-olds. One was a girl named Bailey Holt. The other was a boy named Preston Cope. But there was no real outrage in America that day about Bailey Holt and Preston Cope, because the country has become numb to school shootings by now.

People attend a vigil for the victims of a fatal shooting at Marshall County High School in Benton, Ky. on Jan. 25. (Robert Ray/AP)

Not long ago an illegal immigrant behind the wheel of a car killed an Indianapolis Colts football player named Edwin Jackson. It is not even remotely in dispute that Jackson's death was both senseless and tragic. After his death, this is what President Trump tweeted:

"So disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed @Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. This is just one of many such preventable tragedies. We must get the Dems to get tough on the Border, and with illegal immigration, FAST!"

Students released from a lockdown embrace following following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday. (John McCall/AP)

So you got the idea if the Democrats were just willing to get tougher on the border, we'd barely have to lock our doors at night. But what is righteously and truly disgraceful is that high school students are not safe in this country at this time going to school in the morning.

We will certainly get back on the old merry-go-round today, led by the gunnies from the National Rifle Association, and hear that the only way to properly keep America safe from guns is even more guns. Except at a time when politicians try to divide this country as much over immigrants as we are already divided over race, ask yourself a question:

Who is more dangerous to high school students these days, an undocumented immigrant or another angry American with a gun in his hands and snakes crawling around inside his head?

There is no sane politician, at least no sane politician not in the deep pockets of the NRA, who can look at the list of school shootings in this country and possibly think that the laws we already have about guns in this country — the insane, unfettered access to guns — are working. This isn't about the Second Amendment, or responsible gun owners, or which mass shootings involved guns purchased legally and which did not. This is about an America where we lead the world in shootings like the one that occurred on Wednesday in Parkland, Fla.

It is once again worth asking this question today: How many border walls would we need to build around American schools to make parents think that their children are actually safe when they say goodbye to them in the morning or drop them off?

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And ask this question, after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, as the President says that no child and no teacher should ever feel unsafe: Why the hell shouldn't they?